A general equilibrium model has been constructed in a stochastic endogenous growth economy driven by an Ito-Levy diffusion process. The minimum time to “economic maturity” for an underdeveloped economy has been computed both in the preference manifold of the modified Ramsey fashion and in...

The standard neoclassical growth model with Cobb-Douglas production predicts a monotonically declining saving rate, when reasonably calibrated. Ample empirical evidence, however, shows that the transition path of a country’s saving rate exhibits a rising or non- monotonic pattern. In important...

In this paper, we study the interaction between self insurance and public insurance. In particular, we provide evidence on the relationship between unemployment insurance benefits and home production using the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) and the state-level unemployment insurance data of...

Previous research has repeatedly found a puzzling one-time drop in consumption at retirement at the mean or median. This study expands upon the previous work by examining these same retirement changes across the entire consumption distribution through the application of quantile regression...

We present new evidence on financial literacy and retirement preparation in the Netherlands based on two surveys conducted before and after the onset of the financial crisis. We document that while financial knowledge did not increase from 2005 to 2010, significantly more individuals planned for...

The main purpose of minimum pension benefit programs and old-age social assistance programs is to guarantee a minimum standard of living after retirement and thus to alleviate poverty in old age. In many developing and developed countries, the minimum pension program is a key welfare program and...

Using the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) we estimate quarterly labor earnings risk across 21 industries of the US economy. We document a significant and positive association between earnings risk (both permanent and transitory) and average log-earnings across industries. The...

We used nine waves of the Bank of Italy’s Survey on Household income and Wealth (1995-2012) to investigate a possible trade-off between homeownership and individual participation in a supplementary pension scheme. Italy lends itself to this type of investigation because the Italian public...

This paper explores the consequences of pension reforms in Western Europe in a world economy setting. Whereas various economic and social consequences of ageing have been investigated in OECD countries, very few analyses have explicitly taken the worldwide aspect of the problem into account. In...

This paper provides an introduction to the field of evolutionary economics with emphasis on the evolutionary theory of household behavior. It shows that the goal of evolutionary economics is to improve upon neoclassical economics by incorporating more realistic and empirically grounded...